using floppies with osx

As a newbie, I'll try to make this question as simple as I can. I am using a mac mini with osx 10.6.8. I've downloaded some midi files that I would like to play on my Kawai 170 concert performer digital piano. Problem is the piano has only a floppy disc drive. I have a VST USB Floppy Drive connected to the mac mini. Whenever I insert a disc and try to copy the files to the floppy, it doesn't work. I get a circle with a line through it which tells me that it's not going to copy to the floppy disc. Does anyone know how I can get the midi files from the mac mini to the floppy disc so they'll play on my piano? This is my very first day as a forum member and I would appreciate any help. I did a search for floppy disc and osx, but no hits.

GeeCeeDee said:

I have a VST USB Floppy Drive connected to the mac mini.

Click to expand...

First thing I would verify is what Mac OS versions are compatible with this USB floppy drive. Then compare that to the OS you have installed on your Mac-Mini.

- Nick

Also, have you formatted the floppies? Probably as FAT32 for the piano.

Agreed with Cradom. I know for sure I ran my external USB floppy on one of my Snow Leopard machine before. Try opening Disk Utility and formatting the floppies. I agree try FAT32 as most things can recognize that for sure. Also a PC would format it in FAT32 also. Get back to us.

Using floppies with osx

Many thanks guys. I think I'm getting closer. I reformatted the floppy using ms dos fat. There is no option to use fat 32. I was able to then write the midi files to the disk. However, when trying to run it on the piano, it gives me a "no files" message. Is there some way to install the fat 32 option into my disk utilities? Or am I doing something else wrong.

Again, thanks for your time and brain power.

GeeCeeDee

Forgot to mention that MS Dos format is FAT 32. Maybe the keyboard will not read FAT32 but that is one of the most used formats out there.

when I get info on the floppy, the format is shown as MS-DOS (FAT12). Could this be a problem?

Actually, 1.44 MB floppies are not formatted as FAT-32. The cluster size is too large, instead they're formatted as FAT-12. The floppies are correctly formatted.

How did you "write" the files to the floppy disk? You should have been able to drag and drop them on the floppy if they fit. In other words, copy.

chscag:
I just dragged them onto the floppy disk from the desktop. Then I checked to see if I could play back the files on my mac mini. It works on the mac mini, but the piano says "no files."

OK. The files have been correctly copied to the floppy but the piano doesn't understand them. I wonder what file types the piano is looking for? You say they're midi files? Does your Kawai 170 manual say what files types are compatible for playing? I tried to look for a user or service manual on line but failed to find one. Plenty of used 170s for sale though!

The manual says as follows:
"The CP reads only DOS formatted disks, either double sided double density (720kb) or high density (1.4MB).These are by far the most commonly used formats in the computer as well as musical instrument markets.

"Other than of course recognizing it's own song format, the CP only recognizws song files written in Standard MIDI format and that have DOS file namwes ending with .MID. The CP can can read both song formats 0 and 1.

"Songs that have been composed with the General MIDI standard in mind will sound fine without any additional work, because the creators of the disk have already included data in the files that automatically tell the CP what sounds to use when playing the song."

I tried formatting the disk using the piano, but now it won't load on the mini mac. Woe is me.

Run this little test to see if it'll work:

Go to this website and download several of the free *.mid songs he has there. To download, right click on a song and select "save link as". Copy them to a 1.44 MB DOS formatted floppy and see if they play on the Kawai.

By the way, the songs are all Christian Hymns of Praise.

I'm curious to know the solution to this also.
I tried to save my older Ensoniq (.efe) files to a USB floppy drive on my '07 MBP. My ASR-10 keyboard couldn't read the floppies from a Mac either. I had to use a PC to format the disks to work correctly with my sampler keyboard.

I think in his case the floppies were formatted correctly but the file formats are not being recognized by the piano. I honestly haven't tried to format any floppies with either of my Macs as the only floppies I have are already pre-formatted. So far I haven't had any problems reading floppies that I have from long ago.

Chscag is correct in that floppies are not FAT32 and are actually FAT-12. It's been so long since I looked at the file system on a floppy in OSX I had forgotten that.

I have never had issues with Floppies formatted on my Macs working on other systems. Something is afoul somewhere.

Sorry-no joy. Still get the "no file" message from the Kawaii. Even tried formatting a new floppy, but still get the same message.

I'm about out of ideas to suggest. It could be as Dennis says that formatting the floppies with the Mac causes it not to be read by the Kawai. Maybe you can find some pre-formatted floppies on sale somewhere and try one of them or if you can do the formatting on a PC.

Have you been here? Kawai Downloads - Download Archive
System and OS upgrades for the piano.
Also found a user manual in PDF if you don't have one.
I'm stumped too. Only thing I can think of is wrong file types which it cant read.

TaDa!!!! IT PLAYS. Sort of... Finally got the piano drive to format the disk. Then a guy at Kiwai told me I needed to "load" the songs from the disk to the piano. I finally found a menu to "Load" the disc and the songs appeared in the song list. A few more bugs to work out: Some of the songs do not load for some reason; and some load without any title other than untitled. But at least we've jumped the major hurdle.

Thank all of you for the help you have given me.BTW, Chscag, that was a good site you sent me to, but those were the files that would not load. But I will keep trying! You guys have been just great to put up with this newbie.

Good Going! I had a feeling there was some hidden menu somewhere as I remember on a Yamaha DX7s I repaired once.

Keep us posted!